More with Les

Meet Les Raichert! Les is the man! The horse is called Jimmy. Les lives in Arizona and has a third generation family business selling JUKI sewing machines for industry and home use. We met Les and his wife Rose for the first time at the Houston Quilt Festival where we shared a booth. Les and Rose kept the sewing machines going and Jill, Emily and I demonstrated the frames. We got on really well. Les and Rose were such a pleasure to work with! Les is incredibly knowledgeable about sewing machines. Les and Rose caught the quilting bug at the Houston Show. Now, Les speaks 'Quilter'! He understands what quilters are looking for in a sewing machine and will be able to give you great prices and informed personal service.

The new JUKI 2010 sewing machines from the show are already finding their way into customer's homes and blogs! People love their JUKIs! This blog post links back to an older post which mentions Sharon Schamber. It turns out that ClareAnnettes 'dream machine' purchase was inspired by Sharon Schamber. Sharon is an award winning quilter and a machine quilting guru. We were honoured to meet her when she came round to our booth. Les and Sharon have been friends since they were 19! Here they are beside Sharon's award winning quilt at his year's Houston Quilt Festival. Sharon and her daughter Cristy have an online shop well worth a visit.

If you're looking for a JUKI in America you'll get more with Les! UK quilters can find informed and personal service from the Franklin's Group - the UK JUKI distributors for industrial and domestic sewing machines. Ask for Lawrence or George at the Colchester shop 01206 563955 or Garry at Chelmsford 01245 346300. All these sewing machine guys have test driven JUKI sewing machines on our New English Quilter frames. You can try the sewing machines at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show next week Thursday 24th to Sunday 27th. Look for World of Sewing Hall B stand 155.

Back from Houston

Houston was fantastic! Here's our booth. Les Raichert took the photo. Les and Rose live in Arizona and sell JUKI sewing machines for industry and home use. If you're looking for a JUKI sewing machine in America, Les is the person to talk to! Les and Rose came down to help us at the show. Rose is on the left of the photo next to me and Emily. Jill, on the right, came down from Ohio to help demo. She was the first person in America to get a New English Quilter and you can read about quilting with kids on Jill's blog! For all of us, this was our first time exhibiting at the Houston Quilt Festival. We had so much fun!

Here's a photo of the set up so you can peak behind the scenes. I think that Quilt shows are magical. You come to some enormous building in a state of purposeful chaos. Trucks and lorries, fork lifts and all manner of trolleys moving all sorts of boxes and bits and pieces. 24 hours later the show opens and a new sort of chaos erupts as 60,000 quilters from all over the globe pour through the doors. We have an amazing time meeting all sorts of people who share our passion for quilting. We demo machine quilting with new JUKI 2010 sewing machines on our New English Quilter frames from 10 in the morning til 7 in the evening.

Then four days later we take it all down again. It's exhausting, hilarious and exhilarating. Something must be wrong with us because we can't wait to do it again next year! I'll be posting lots of stories over the next few days but this one sets the stage. Last of all, here's a little you tube clip of our stand during the show that Les took with his phone. You can see Emily machine quilting a charity quilt on the 6 foot Art Quilter frame.